According to the Lonely Planet Africa guidebook, “Namibia is one of those dreamlike places that make you question whether something so visually orgasmic could actually exist.”
Reading descriptions such as this and hearing other people‘s travel stories fuelled my wanderlust. I wanted to see this place and so six of us decided to travel to Namibia over our spring break.
Things didn’t start off so well. We arrived at the airport on Saturday only to be informed that Air Namibia had cancelled our flight. They had not notified us and we were forced to book another flight on a different airline in order to make our connection in Johannesburg later that day. Living in Africa, even for such a short time, we have all come to expect such mishaps. There is a saying here that you must take to heart otherwise you will drive yourself crazy with frustration: “Europeans have the clock but Africans have the time”. Oh, how true that is!
We finally arrived in the capital city of Windhoek late that evening. The next morning we set off for the resort city of Swakopmund. The five-hour drive took us across a rugged, barren and isolated landscape. It reminded me of New Mexico, the land of enchantment. This too, was a country filled with captivating beauty.
Swakopmund is a seaside city sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the soaring sand dunes of the Namib Desert. It has been described as being more German than Germany. I have to say that this is true. Very ironic, considering that Germany lost all her colonies after WWI and this part of southeast Africa became British. Everyone speaks German, road signs and menus are in German, there are German delis, bakeries, breweries, restaurants, bookstores…The grocery stores are stocked with German products and brand names such as Haribo, Tobler, Lowenbrau, Dallmayr, Nutella… My traveling companions and I could hardly contain ourselves! We were positively giddy by all the choices available. Eloise bought 11 pounds (we weighed it) of pumpernickel bread to bring back to Lusaka.
The desert has always fascinated me and the dunes that we were going to play on did not disappoint. They are part of the Namib Desert that stretches more than 1,200 miles along the Atlantic coast. One of the first things we did was take the Living Desert Tour, a fascinating and educational experience. We learned about the eco-system and how various critters can survive in a place that hasn’t seen rain in 4 years. We saw chameleons, snakes (very deadly), scorpions, jackals, lizards, and strange insects. Our guide explained that the surface of the dunes vary in color due to the various particles carried by the winds and also the direction of the winds. The heavier materials tend to rest on the top of the dunes. To me it looked like the swirls of a marble cake. Absolutely beautiful!
All of us had different ideas on how to spend our time so we did our own thing during the day, meeting up later for a good meal. I went on a camel trek and watched the sun rise over the dunes. I kayaked with the seals in Walvis Bay, walked along the desolate seashore and listened to the pounding surf. Namibia was a wonderful experience. I thought of it as a ‘reconnaissance’ trip since I plan on returning to explore more of Africa’s youngest country.
